The Chuwi LapBook 14.1 Review: Redefining Affordable
by Brett Howse on March 10, 2017 8:00 AM ESTWireless
Chuwi has surprised me yet again. Instead of using a bargain basement wireless NIC, they have gone with the dependable Intel Wireless-AC 3165 solution. This isn’t the latest and greatest Intel wireless NIC, but it is at least an 802.11ac model which includes built-in Bluetooth. The big change over this and the Intel Wireless-AC 7265, which was also a “Stone Peak” NIC, is that the 3265 is 1x1 only, meaning it has a peak connection speed of 433 Mbps, compared to the 867 MHz of the faster 2x2 solution. There is a newer version of this card, the 3168, which would likely lower power consumption, but with the fact that a 1x1 wireless solution was almost guaranteed, the 3265 is a good choice.
Although it’s not 100% fair to compare the ASUS UX305 here, it shipped with a 2x2 solution, but with the Intel Dual Band Wireless-N 7265, which was the same generation of Wireless NIC, but with only 802.11n support. The result is that, even though the Chuwi is a 1x1 solution, it basically outperforms the 2x2 802.11n solution in the UX305. Compared to the Realtek 1x1 802.11n NIC in the HP Stream 11, the Intel 3265 walks all over it, especially since the HP was 2.4 GHz only. Anything that is 802.11ac requires 5 GHz, which has less range, but far more bandwidth. Despite the 1x1 wireless, the Chuwi has a very respectable wireless solution. There had to be cuts somewhere. If anyone is still running an 802.11n router, take this as a good set of data to support an upgrade.
Audio
The LapBook has two speakers on the underside of the notebook, which is often the case on smaller laptops where space is at a premium, but that can greatly vary the sound output depending on what surface the laptop is on, so it is never the best way to proceed.
The LapBook does get surprisingly loud, with 86 dB(A) measured at maximum volume with the SPL meter an inch over the trackpad, but the tone of this notebook is terrible. There is almost no low end bass at all, so music has almost no range at all. This is one of the worst sounding speakers I’ve ever seen in a notebook, but then again there are plenty of headphones that cost more than this entire machine, so I suppose you have to cut it some slack.
Thermals
Generally, in this section, we’d look at the performance and ensure the cooling solution is adequate to keep the system functioning at full performance, and while that has been tested, there’s really not much to say. Since the laptop is fanless, there is no audible cooling solution, which is certainly a nice benefit, and the CPU never got over 80°C at 100% load for several hours of operation. Despite this, the laptop itself barely even got warm to the touch, with just a bit of a warm spot on the bottom where the CPU is. Doing research for this article, I did come across a couple of complaints about this laptop overheating and shutting down. That’s clearly not a good thing, but the device we received showed no signs of that. I think it’s something the company should take seriously, and a small bit of effort on the engineering side would help a lot.
Thanks to our friends at FLIR, we can use their FLIR One thermal imaging camera to get a look at the heat output on this notebook. This photo was after 90 minutes of 100% load, and the lapotop temperatures were very low. There was a bit of heat, up to around 34-35°C, right above the CPU, but the keys never felt hot to the touch.
Software
Long have we lived in an age where laptops come loaded down with plenty of unnecessary software. Sometimes it’s somewhat useful, such as system tools or software for fan speed, or what have you, but often it’s trial software, or just unnecessary utilities. I’m very happy to see that Chuwi has proven you can offer a low-cost notebook, without all of the software they would normally get paid to install for you.
Just Windows
The Chuwi LapBook 14.1 came with clean Windows 10. There was no additional software installed. In fact, other than them adding a few icons to the desktop for This PC, Control Panel, and Documents, it is as close to a pure Windows 10 install as any laptop I have used, other than Surface devices. Nice job Chuwi.
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BrokenCrayons - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Here's a link to a reviewer that tested the Lapbook with Ubuntu:http://www.cnx-software.com/2017/02/07/installing-...
The results look promising.
tipoo - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
If I could don my tin hat for only a few seconds...Has anyone ever looked at the outbound traffic on these lesser known Chinese designed electronics? There was some controversy with Xiaomi router traffic even iirc.
BrokenCrayons - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
A quick search didn't turn up anything. I don't think they're selling in large enough numbers to attract a lot of interest in sniffing their outbound traffic. It's a reasonable concern, but I don't think Chuwi would actively attempt to perform mass data collection. That's a pretty widely cast net that wouldn't reap much value because you're probably looking at largely home users. The data collection would be almost entirely uninteresting. Maybe some social networking, shopping and general web browsing, someone's hidden inappropriate photos and videos...that kind of thing isn't worth a lot unless you have a specific target in mind and in that case its more prudent to isolate that individual rather than everyone buying your products. Probably the best you'd get is access to someone's personal finances and a deep enough investigation would do a lot of damage to business interests. It's really worth more to establish a good brand reputation and land decent numbers of sales than it is to go through the trouble of getting one or two generations of hardware out there to a small number of people that probably are collectively deep in debt and have little liquid cash.fanofanand - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link
I think the concern would lay more on the government's involvement (The Chinese government is involved with virtually all exported electronics). I agree with every single thing you wrote, but Chinese businesses don't all exist for the sole purpose of making money.Bullwinkle J Moose - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Good point tipooThis article just today and all the turmoil at Samsung and S Korea makes me think we should be looking out for malware popping up in other places
Even places we have considered to be quite reliable up till now
https://arstechnica.com/security/2017/03/preinstal...
Things seem to be escalating but I'm sure the CIA will put a start to any malware threats to this Country (LOL)
Murloc - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
to make such low costs devices you buy standard chips so I don't think they can put anything in it.If chinese-designed chips have espionage software in them, then a bunch of the network infrastructure we rely on is bugged because huawei is everywhere in them. Also phones that use mediatek devices.
So worrying doesn't make sense, also because it's well-known from the various leaks and stuxnet that the NSA and the CIA and mossad don't need hardware to snoop or damage critical infrastructure so the chinese don't either.
Meteor2 - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
Nice review of a nice machine.Good to read about how Goldmont finally played out. MS must've been pissed when Intel cancelled Broxton, but I imagine it's now Intel's turn with Windows on 835 coming. It's a shame Intel did what they did as Goldmont appears to be good silicon.
aryonoco - Friday, March 10, 2017 - link
The main competition in this price category is Chromebooks.The fact that you are pitting this device in your comparisons against a Yoga 3 Pro and a Asus UX305, and not a single Chromebook, says all that needs to be said about the sorry state of AT these days.
Sure, I miss Anand & Brian, but when they left we got Jarred Walton Andrei Frumusanu, who at least knew what they were talking about. Ryan, these new writers you have hired do not stack up.
Ian Cutress - Saturday, March 11, 2017 - link
To clarify an obvious error: Jarred was here 10 years, and both Andrei and Brett were here well before Anand left. Brett has been one of our freelance editors for over two years and attends events such as CES and Build as our Senior Laptop Editor. If you dislike the context of this review, sure, I'll grant you that opinion, but he has a large body of great work under him already. He's not new, he knows the score.On the testing front, it's a factor of what we get in for testing at any given time. Ultimately 90% of the time vendors want us to test their premium units, not something low cost. And there's a thousand low-cost options out there to potentially compare them against. When you've got a freelancer with time for 6-10 reviews a year, most of those will be high-end premium reviews. So if something interesting comes along, even at a super low price point, you compare against what you can or have at the time.
Which in this case, the HP Stream 11 is the perfect comparison point for all these benchmarks. The Yoga/Surface are added to show the comparison to what a high-end notebook investment would be, which users always want to know without having to dig through our results database. We do have some Chromebooks in our database, but they are old. We haven't tested one in a long while (so we don't have one in for retesting), and they were all done by a different reviewer over 1000 miles away at the time. Most of the Chromebooks are Atom based anyway, which is why the HP Stream is still a relevant comparison. Heck, I even recommended the Stream 11 to someone I know a couple of weeks ago, and she loves it (especially now there's a 360-degree hinge version).
fanofanand - Monday, March 13, 2017 - link
I get what the OP is saying but it is misguided in this case. Brett's reviews are solid. Some of the review product choices (case and PSU reviews) have been questionable but other than mobile reviews I haven't seen a real decline in the quality of Anandtech's journalism. Yes, they have had some major misses in the last year (especially in the GPU space) but what they have actually written has been fairly solid content.